Christie’s – First Impressions Auction Analysis

First Impressions auction, with quite impressive number of lots, took place at Christie’s New York, on Tuesday, July 14 2015. We witnessed some quite remarkable results. The auction gathered $1.857.150, with some solid sales that marked the evening. As expected, some of the best results were achieved during the sale of the works by Roy Lichtenstein and David Hockney. Andy Warhol’s pieces were quite popular as well.

The Big Three: Lichtenstein, Hockney and Warhol

The biggest hammer prices were seen in the sales of works by Lichtenstein, Hockney and Warhol. Roy Lichtenstein’s Bedroom was sold for $55.000. Two pieces by Andy Warhol were sold by solid price as well – San Francisco Silverspot, from Endangered Species was sold for $48.000, while Grevy’s Zebra, from Endangered Species was sold for $45.000. Finally, two David Hockney’s pieces achieved excellent results – Hotel Acatlan: Two Weeks Later, from Moving Focus and Views of Hotel Well III, from Moving Focus were sold for $32.000.

The Overview of Christie’s – First Impressions Auction

Out of 437 lots offered at Christie’s – First Impressions Auction, 363 were sold (or 83.1 percent), which is quite good result. Exactly 27.3 percent of sold lots (more precisely 99) changed their owners for the hammer price larger than the high estimate, as opposed to 137 lots, or 37.7 percent, being sold for the price smaller than the low estimate; 127 lots (35 percent of lots) were sold in range of estimated value. Average hammer price at this auction was $5.116, while the hammer price median was $3.200. The difference between average hammer price and median was -37.5 percent.

Speaking about the most successful lots, lots that have exceeded expectations, the winners are Frank Stella’s Irving Blum Memorial Edition, from Star of Persia Series and Josef Albers’s Gray Instrumentation II k, from Gray Instrumentation II that were sold with +200 percent difference between hammer price and high estimate. We should also mention Ilya Bolotwsky ‘s Portfolio III: seven prints and Frank Stella’s Star of Peria II, from Star of Persia Series that were sold with +183.3 percent and +160 percent difference between hammer price and high estimate. On the bottom side are Rudolph Carl Gorman’s Waiting Desert Woman with -87.5 percent difference between hammer price and low estimate, followed by Marie Laurencin’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (with -86.7 percent), Louise Nevelson’s Dusk in August, from Portfolio of Nine (with -83.3 percent) and After Pablo Picasso’s Vallauris 1953 – Exhibition (with -83.3 percent).